Linux

Good S0ix support. At the moment, Linux mostly fails to sleep correctly on modern S0ix laptops, which happens to be most modern laptops.

This means the battery drains incredibly fast, and S0ix features aren't being used, which is unfortunate as it has potential for quick wake, lid closed actions and limiting battery drain while asleep (since S0ix can eventually hibernate automatically from a sleep state)

Also the boot loader could be improved, systemd-boot needs to support secure boot natively so we can be rid of the slow, ancient and scary-looking GRUB.

I will be checking this thread out later for potential idiot proof distros

Automatic updates are essential. and unfortunately, it should not be an option to keep an old version of something, because through shared libraries it will hold back the entire system. fatpaks should be used for those programs.

Fortunately it's getting there, like KDE is working on it too, but it's still got a long way.

Fedora has been "just working" for me for the last couple of years. It is my go to for older relatives for that very reason.

It depends on which user and their workflow. For example, Graphics Designer use Photoshop compare to GIMP because of native CMYK for printing as well as non-destructive effects. Most people will be fine using GIMP.

I bring this up as I tend to see people on Lemmy and even in online space that talks about open source that would bitch about "normies" being too stubborn for not trying Linux or any open-source projects in general but never think about how much compromise they had to do if they do go down the open-source route.

It does just work for normal users.

Normies use the installed os. Just install a browser and office suite, thats all the need and care about.

lack of some kind of standardization

Standardization = monopoly risks. It's not worth it in the first place.